Ep 15: Javier Ramirez, The Book Table

Drunk Booksellers

Epigraph

We are thrilled to welcome our new BFF to Drunk Booksellers: Javier Ramirez, manager of The Book Table in Oak Park, IL and co-host of industry get-together Publishing Cocktails.

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This episode is sponsored by Books & Whatnot, the newsletter dedicated to books, bookselling, and bookish folk; check out their newsletter archive here. Follow Books & Whatnot on Twitter at @booksandwhatnot.

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Introduction

In which we apologize profusely for the delay in our episode posting, bond over Kelly Link, and get excited about books that are... already out

We had the pleasure of chatting with Javier nearly every week for a month while trying to record this episode (#techfail), then ran into a few other delays (#lifefail), but WE HAVE PREVAILED. That said, we talk about books that are already out as if they're forthcoming and we're drinking a nice "summer" drink because it was, you know, still summer when we first started this wild ride of an episode. Just pretend you're a time traveler visiting the halcyon days of late August 2017.

We’re Drinking

Vodka & Tonics with NO FRUIT

Javier's Reading

• a bunch of nonfiction for the Kirkus Nonfiction Prize

• The Sun in Your Eyes by Deborah Shapiro

• Heartbreaker by Maryse Meijer

• The Seventh Function of Language by Laurent Binet

• Ranger Games by Ben Blum

Kim's Reading

• Mother of All Questions by Rebecca Solnit

  • (and check out the Huffington Post article about being mansplained to while reading about Solnit's Men Explain Things to Me)

• You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me by Sherman Alexie

• The Store by James Patterson... 'cause Patterson is awesome, gives booksellers (including your grateful hosts) money for fancy things like student loan debt and ridiculous urban rent, trolls Amazon for funsies, and rocks a photoshopped Santa hat like a boss:

• Kim's reading aloud: My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George

Emma's Reading

• MIS(H)Adra by Iasmin Omar

• Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado... Emma's favorite story from the collection is “Inventory”

• Lumberjanes: Unicorn Power! by Mariko Tamaki

• Spinster by Kate Bolick

Forthcoming Titles We're Excited For

Kim's Epic List of Titles that Are Already Out

• The Golden House by Salman Rushdie

• Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

• Miss Kopp’s Midnight Confessions by Amy Stewart

• What Happened by Hillary Rodham Clinton

• Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

• Afterglow by Eileen Myles

• Never Stop by Simba Sana

• The Origin of Others by Toni Morrison

Javier's Excited About

• The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne

• Release by Patrick Ness (if you haven't read Ness before, Javier recommends you start with The Chaos Walking series, which beginning with The Knife of Never Letting Go)

• Dinner at the Center of the Earth by Nathan Englander (also mentioned The Ministry of Special Cases and What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank)

• The Gone World by Tom Sweterlitsch (pubs 2/6/18)

• The Grip of It by Jac Jemc

Emma's Excited About

• The Glass Town Game by Catherynne M Valente

• In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan

• We Were Witches by Ariel Gore (How to Become a Famous Writer Before You’re Dead)

• A Loving, Faithful Animal by Josephine Rowe

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Chapter I [26:50]

In which Javier conquers the Chicago bookselling scene

Javier started at Tower Records (RIP)

He currently manages the Fiercely Independent Chicago-area bookstore, The Book Table.

Javier has worked at pretty much every bookstore in Chicago. Other than the OG Powell's. Unless you're talking time travel.

Javier's epic Tour de Bookselling (chronologically):

Tower Books --> Crown Books --> Barbara's Bookstore --> The Book Cellar --> Seminary Co-op Bookstores --> 57th Street Books --> Newberry Library Bookstore --> Book Stall --> City Lit Books --> The Book Table

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Chapter II [33:45]

In which we talk Publishing Cocktails and how to network IRL in the internet age

Publishing Cocktails, created by Javier and Keir Graff (senior editor at BookList) brings Chicago-area book industry folk from around the country together. They have two primary meetup events: Book Swap & Cash Mob.

Follow Publishing Cocktails on Twitter at @PubNight.

Sign up for the Publishing Cocktails email list for future updates.

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Chapter III [38:20]

In which Emma is, once again, deeply disappointed

Book Description Guaranteed to Get You Reading

Anything not blurbed by Lena Dunham (shout out to Gary Shteyngart’s epicly excessive blurbing). Anything blurbed by Kelly Link or George Saunders. Check the blurbs on Patrick Rothfuss’s Name of the Wind. Plus time travel! Kim and Javier bond over All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders (shout out to the Booze and Lasers Book Club at Third Place Books Seward Park), with references to Michael Crichton’s Timeline and, you know, Harry Potter. Emma ruins the ending of one of the stories in A Guide to Being Born by Ramona Ausubel.

Desert Island Pick

The entire body of work of Agatha Christie

Station Eleven Pick

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, which has Javier’s favorite first line: It was a pleasure to burn.

In case you were wondering, Emma’s favorite first (and second) line(s) come from Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House. Javier’s posting staff’s favorite lines from literature in his store and he drunkenly promised Emma that he’d post hers too. Pics or it didn’t happen, Javier.

Wild Pick

The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben

Bookseller Confession

HAS ANY BOOKSELLER ACTUALLY READ HARRY POTTER? JESUS, YOU GUYS.

Go-To Handsell

Geek Love by Katherine Dunn

Here's Javier's blurb, blatantly stolen from The Book Table's website:

When confronted with the "What is your favorite book of all time?" query, most people will often pause, looking over the inquisitors head while thoughtfully scratching his or her chin. I, on the other hand, will not hesitate when I tell you this. Geek Love is my favorite book. Of all time. Period. This oddball masterpiece (a National Book Award Finalist in 1989) shaped me as a reader and more importantly as a bookseller 20+ years ago. It's one of those reading experiences that make you feel like you're in on some life-changing secret. A novel that will chill you, move you and make you laugh, often at the same time. Help celebrate the 25th anniversary of the publication of Geek Love, quite possibly the best novel you've never read.

Master & the Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov: There's a cat